Oxidative cycloamination of olefins with aziridines as a versatile route to saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycles.

Highly reactive [5,3] and [6,3] bicyclic aziridines can be readily prepared from the corresponding NH aziridines and N-bromosuccinimide by intramolecular oxidative cycloamination of olefins. These compounds, including surprisingly stable exo-methylene bicyclic aziridines, provide versatile synthetic entries into a wide range of pyrrolidine- and piperidine-containing heterocycles.